They Say Time Heals All Wounds
by Sunshinecackle
Summary: Adam hated it when Lawrence said he'd kill for him. He didn't want to think about the bathroom, and the word 'kill' always brought back two distinct memories from it. 'Kill Adam' being the first, and killing Zep Hindle being the most vivid.


**Title:** They Say Time Heals All Wounds  
**Author:** Donnie  
**Fandom:** Saw  
**Setting:** Lawrence and Adam's Apartment  
**Pairing:** Lawrence Gordon/Adam Faulkner  
**Characters:** Lawrence Gordon, Adam Faulkner, Zep Hindle, John Kramer, Amanda Young  
**Genre:** Angst/Romance  
**Rating:** M  
**Chapters:** 1/1  
**Word Count:** 981  
**Type of Work:** One-Shot  
**Status:** Complete  
**Warnings:** Gay, Slash, Yaoi, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Flashbacks, Canon-Compliant Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Lawrence and Adam are both apprentices to saw in this verse, Vomit Mention  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything.  
**Summary:** Adam hated it when Lawrence said he'd kill for him. He didn't want to think about the bathroom, and the word 'kill' always brought back two distinct memories from it. 'Kill Adam' being the first, and killing Zep Hindle being the most vivid.

**AN:** Alright, so, it's been a while since I have written for my boys, and I got sucked back in. So we're going to be doing this again for a while, which will be fun, I suppose. I've got some things going that I think will end up being a lot of fun, but we'll see how much actually gets written. Anyway, here we go!

**They Say Time Heals All Wounds******

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Smoke twirled and slunk around itself with the clean air of the room as it wafted for the ceiling, the stone ashtray littered with extinguished butts already. Having hardly finished the last one, Adam lit up another, filling his lungs with more of that sweet, slow death, ignoring the quiet, sleepy cough from his partner. Anxiety filled every half-hearted puff, but he didn't exhale calm like he always did when he let the smoke out of his nose. In fact, all he felt was another burning void in his heart that made it race, skipping a beat, and set his eyes to a thousand yard stare that didn't stop his hands from shaking.

They were _just_ words. That was what he tried to tell himself; Words that didn't mean anything. Lawrence said them because of the sentiment, not because he meant them. Hell, half the time, he didn't think that Lawrence even knew he _had_ said them. It was always something mumbled into his hair or against the thin skin of his hands.

_I'd kill for you._

The words, the casual way in which they had been whispered to him, like a secret for his ears only that could be lost among the breaths in his ear… They haunted him. Lawrence had fallen asleep, wrapped around him like a shield, but an earworm didn't need to come from the outside. The confining embrace had felt like the end of the world, where it had been nothing but comfort and safety minutes before. As the world fell away, he sat at the small table in the bedroom near the foot of the bed, the one they sometimes relaxed at when the evenings were cool but he couldn't convince himself to go onto the porch.

Everything felt like too much, too close, the darkness hummed and throbbed around him as it gave way to dingy, wannabe white tile, the acrid scent of shit and blood blending in his nose, knocking the crisp tobacco smell far away from him. His lips parted as the clinical, unnaturally bright lights flooded his vision, and he felt damp, soaked and dry all in the same second. Quaking hands dripped blood and viscera, and as he stared, numb and unable to really do more than that, he tried to shake them.

A warm body going cold beneath his skin bobbed to the surface and he felt himself go stiff, still, as if he were the one plagued by the death that had happened in that room. Without Lawrence, without _Amanda_ coming back to find him, to take him _home_, it would have ended there for him, too. There was so much death in that one room that Adam could still feel the weight of it on his body at all times, could smell the stench when he opened his mouth. The buzzing of the lights or the wet crunch of bone and blood as he pummelled Zep Hindle to death with the back of a toilet, the sounds followed him around the city like bad Christmas music in the winter.

A choked sob left him, a desperate plea that sounded broken even among the rushing drone of the lights that weren't there, and he pitched forward, positive he was going to vomit any second, now.

It wasn't until he felt a warm hand pressing to the nape of his neck that he went stock still again, everything suddenly feeling like it was kicked into neutral. The world around him wasn't blinding, because all he could focus on was the intense blue eyes staring into his. Without the blood loss, they seemed almost dull, because he remembered their stark contrast to Lawrence's pale face. But seeing him with the color in his cheeks, with that soft, reassuring smile on his lips, was so much better than the look of a man that could have died before he got help.

"You're okay." Lawrence spoke softly, careful, his voice gruff with lost sleep. "You'll be okay. I've got you. It's going to be okay, I wouldn't lie to you."

Much as Adam had dwelled on those words until he'd been plucked from that shitstain of a graveyard, they brought him nothing but comfort now, rocking in a chair in their bedroom. His hands rattled against the elder's skin as he held both sides of Lawrence's face, tears, snot and saliva dripping down his own. When had he even started crying? It must have been what had woken Lawrence up. At the very least, it was good that he'd woken up when he had because Adam was still able to be pulled out of his head, yanked from the bathroom that never really left him.

The softly whispered words fell on deaf ears, at first, but slowly Adam's sobs began to subside. His hands felt numb from their white-knuckled grip on Lawrence's shirt, and when he was finally tugged from his chair to the bed, they both felt the instant relief it brought them. Crouching in front of Adam without his prosthetic was never a comfortable position, though it was sometimes a necessary one.

Pulling him into a gentle embrace, tight enough to keep him in place but with enough give not to feel trapped, Lawrence kissed his shoulders, neck and ears. It became his top priority to kiss any bare skin he could readily access, offering Adam the affection and physical reassurance he needed. When the sobs subsided and Adam was still and quiet once more, Lawrence kissed his lips softly only to find that his lover had fallen into a somewhat easy sleep. At least he seemed calm, which was better than how he'd been ten minutes ago. He'd have to talk to him in the morning to see what had triggered this panic attack, if he could even remember.

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**AN:** Alright, there we go. I've been having a rough time lately, and so getting this out was surprisingly helpful. I hope to be writing something less angsty next, because it seems all I've been capable of lately is angst.


End file.
